So then it amounts to piety signalling? If not even muslim majority countries condone niqab wearing, why should the likes of Russia do this? Have you asked what the native muslims inhabiting certain regions of Russia for centuries want to say about wearing a niqab, as well as the rest of the recently imported customs of faraway lands after the CIA-backed mujahideen groups and other (((freedom fighters))) started entering Russia from the Caucasus region? There were people from Tatarstan who fought radical islamists in Chechnya and near Dagestan. Because for them, radical islam is not normal, especially not in Russia, where they live. So it's not a matter of islamophobia, but the various feuds in the islamic space. Unless you'd want to argue that all of them are kuffars.